Ah, I see I forgot to divide by 32. You’re correct, sorry about that.
Actually, my answer isn’t similar. Under my assumptions, Spider-Man has 2 gees of acceleration relative to the earth, plus the normal 1 gee from the Earth’s gravity. But Berkut didn’t add in the Earth’s gravity, so using his numbers, it’d be a total of 4 gees.
And I would have checked his math, except that I’ve done this calculation before (for another SDMB thread, of course) and I remembered the answer off the top of my head.
nitpick:honey is bee vomit not bee crap
Yes, I know it’s technically regurgitation,but I like saying “bee vomit”
If you’re talking about Spidey describing a circular arc at the end of a taut 250-foot line of inelastic webbing, with a speed of 147 fps, I get 11 Gs. I’m a bit rusty, though.
Sorry – knew that couldn’t be right. More like 2.7 Gs.
Only on the Straight Dope…
(I am so nominating this for Threadspotting)
So . . . even as Spidey accelerates around a building, the g-forces remain pretty negligible? That surprises me. I saw REALTV! video once where six people jumped from one bungee cord, but not straiht down; they swung in an arc. They hadn’t calculted the centrifugal forces though, and at the bottom of the arc the bungee cord snapped (they had six cords wound together) , and they were all pretty badly injured.
Just the natural feeling of physic you get from swinging stuff around your head as a kid left me kind of . . . aware of my insides while I was watching Spidey swing. The centrifugal force looked pretty extreme. Let me put it this way: if you were *afraid * of centrifugal force, Spiderman would have given you nightmares.
Geekiest … thread … EVER!
According to the Marvel encyclopedia, Spider-Man’s peak strength is at about 10 tons (this measurement being how much the hero can press above thier head). If we assume that pre-transformation, Peter, about 5’10", 150 lbs., would have at most been able to press 100 lbs. over his head, we find that his muscular strength has been increased by a factor of 200.
In the first movie, he’s able to hold a cable car with one hand, so I think that 10 tons is a reasonable estimate for the movie Spidey. The G-forces involved would be negligible.
Also, his webs can be very elastic (dependiung upon how densely he spins the web), and stretch a lot like rubber bands. In both movies he uses them to make a Spider-Man sized slingshot to fling himself across a great distance, and he uses this elastic property to help stop the train in number 2.
How does Spidey swing? He can get started either from a building or from the ground. Let’s assume that he’s swinging down the street between two sets of buildings. Here’s how it works. He leaps off of a building on one side of the street, lets say the right. At the same time, or shortly after, he shoots a web ahead of him and down the street at a building on the opposite side of the street, swinging on it forward and toward the other building. As he reaches the speed he wants to go, he shoots a web towards the side he started on, and transfers to it. If he manages to go past the bottom of the arc, he’ll let go of web a, and let the momentum carry him up for a bit before starting a new line.
From the ground, he leaps into the air (he can make a standing jump of at least 20-30 feet) and shoots a web up. As it attaches, he gives it a yank, his pull adding to his upward momentum, giving him the height he needs to start swinging as above.
That’s saying something, indeed…
you might want to check out the RoTJ question thread concurrently running…
Centrifugal force also depends on the distance from the center. If Spider-man, while swinging, were to somehow pull himself up on his web until he was the same distance from the attachment point as the bucket was from your hand, even his exalted spider-guts would be thoroughly squished (of course, he also wouldn’t have the strength to pull himself up that far…). But at the end of a hundred meters or so (and I’ll bet you never swung anything around your head on a hundred-meter rope), at his speeds, it’d be quite manageable.
Rufus, this thread is far nerdier than the current Jedi one. That’s just a contextual analysis of a literary work… Half the threads in this forum are that. Here, though, we’re not just analyzing literature, we’re doing so in the context of physics and (meta)human physiology. But if I had to pick, I’d say that the nerdiest SDMB thread ever has to be either the Star of the Third Magnitude or the Fabulous Über-roach (both of them Threadspotted, of course).
Waitaminnit. Superman poops? That’s crazy talk.
You know, what this thread really needs to make it complete is a link to Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.
Great, now I’m wondering if Superman’s movements are as indestructible as he is. If so, the Kents must have one helluva plumbing bill.
“Yep, Mr. Kent, it’s those weird brown lumps blockin’ the pipes again. That’s gonna cost you another $400.”
I stand humbly corrected. Of course, the RoTJ thread could easily devolve into a discussion on the technical workings of Vader’s life-support system at a moment’s notice…
An important, but little known, fact about Spidey is that he is an avid Atkins Dieteer. Inside sources have informed this reporter that he has not had any noticible amounts of fiber since August 1998.
A call to the Pentagon brought this responce from a Weapon’s Development & Acquisition officer, “Fiberless, all meat and cheese, turds have been tested and found to be lethal at high speeds and within normal handgun ranges.”
When asked to speculate on whether Spidey might be using this as a weapon the officer shrugged and said, “Maybe he just needs to take a dump. He ought to be glad he ain’t got 'roids like me.”
Films to be shown in the tri-state area at eleven.
Well he would have to be. He shoots around an amount of that web stuff that seems to rival his body weight. He would need to choke down some serious quantities of protein to keep that up.
All this talk of Spidey shooting things around and protein leads me to believe that this thread is going to bang a hard left down the porn alley any minute now.
One could argue that the sudden disappearance of his webspinning powers in the movie might be due to his poor diet…he never seems to eat much.
If you’d like to pursue this topic in your off-time, I suggest reading this. I’ve read it, and it’s great fun.